[mrkeen]

> To have a variable is to assume that something can vary.

Tautology.

> To be a cause is to assume something can make a difference.

Tautology.

> To have a process is to assume a system that can change and transform.

Tautology.

Vacuous is exactly how I'd describe the above.

The only statement with potential depth is:

> To make a measurement you assume there is a scale to measure difference.

This invokes quantum mechanics a little. But if those are Deleuze's words, he's a bit late to the party. That stuff was being quantified and mathematically modelled decades before.

[beepbooptheory]

This is very strange.. Those are not what tautologies are.

In order for something to be tautological, you need to be working within some formal system of proof. Proposing definitions to terms could never be tautological.

I think you just want to say "I know that already!"

Also, Deleuze would love this comment, precisely because of your confusion in the term.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Logic_of_Sense

[bangkoksbest]

To be fair, I did intentionally write them in a style to mimic propositional logical statements (which are tautologies) but you are correct that they're not in a formal system so they can't actually be tautologies.

[mrkeen]

> This is very strange.. Those are not what tautologies are.

> I think you just want to say "I know that already!"

> “All humans are mammals” is held to assert with regard to anything whatsoever that either it is not a human or it is a mammal. But that universal “truth” follows not from any facts noted about real humans but only from the actual use of human and mammal and is thus purely a matter of definition. [1]

Moving on.

I assumed parent was trying to make (non-vacuous) statements, firstly because he was replying to a comment, and secondly because he followed them up with "There's nothing vacuous about this."

> Proposing definitions to terms could never be tautological.

If you treat them as statements, the tautologies clearly appear by substituting the terms' definitions in:

* To have a (thing which can vary) is to assume that something can vary.

* To be a (something that can make a difference) is to assume something can make a difference.

But if parent was just defining his terms, then let's hear those terms used in non-vacuous statements.

[1] https://www.britannica.com/topic/tautology

[bangkoksbest]

As the parent commenter, I already put a reply you could respond to

[bangkoksbest]

Of course they're tautologies in a logic sense, and I deliberately wrote them that way (whether they are pejorative tautologies is not really a material point.) They're statements about the methods for empirical thinking, the statements were not supposed to have empirical content themselves.

[ChainOfFools]

> This invokes quantum mechanics a little.

It also invokes politics, economics, and all that implements some form of notional value, because as some other philosopher quipped, what gets measured gets treasured.